During ACC.18, LUMEDX will be at Booth 3007 in the Interventional Pavilion, showcasing our cutting-edge software and services designed to help hospitals improve care and reduce costs across the cardiovascular service line. Schedule a meeting here to learn all about the latest CV data management tools and our new analytics-driven Cardiovascular Performance Program.

ACC.18 is March 10-12 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. Expo hours are 9:30 a.m.-4:45 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, March 10-11, and 9:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday, March 12. The conference features content in 11 learning pathways, each narrowing in on a different clinical specialty of cardiovascular disease, including Interventional Cardiology, Congenital Heart Disease, Prevention and more.

An estimated 13,000 healthcare professionals will attend the event that is packed full of networking opportunities and chances to discuss and debate the latest science and information with the world’s top experts. For more information about ACC.18, click here.

If you are attending NCDR.18, be sure to stop by the LUMEDX table to see how the No. 1 independent provider of ACC-NCDR® registry software can help your hospital go beyond data collection with innovative ways to drive quality and contain costs.

NCDR.18 will be held March 7-9 at the Caribe Royale Orlando and is expecting a turnout of 1,700 registry professionals, quality improvement professionals, physicians and administrators. Exhibit hours are 5:30-8:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 7, 6:30 a.m.-7 p.m. Thursday, March 8, and 7 a.m.-2:45 p.m. Friday, March 9. For a complete agenda, click here.

Don’t let obsolete devices jeopardize your medical data

As anyone with a mobile phone can attest, technology is moving so fast it doesn’t take long for the next big thing to become antiquated. This rapid rate of change creates many challenges, and one of the most critical is the retention of important information even as the devices collecting and storing that information become obsolete.

In fact, a study by the University of British Columbia tracking the accessibility of scientific data over time found that 80 percent is lost within two decades thanks to outmoded storage devices and old email addresses.

Now imagine all the clinical and operational data that’s collected within hospital walls, data that must be retained when new technology and new clinical devices are installed.

“As devices become obsolete, we remove them from service and bring in something new,” says Mickey Norris, Southeast Sales VP and General Manager at LUMEDX. “But the problem is that when you remove these devices from service, you’re also removing all the data they collected in the past. So, as you throw out the device you risk throwing out years of relevant data.”

While some device information is transmitted to another system, like an EHR, if it is not captured as discrete data it is not available for analysis. This problem can be avoided by extracting discrete data elements, he says. LUMEDX’s database is designed to extract more than 20,000 data elements from the start, according to Norris.

“We believe that any piece of information that’s collected is going to be relevant. Maybe you don’t see the value of that data point today, but you will in the future,” he added. “Most of the time we don’t know what’s going to be relevant in the future, but if we’ve collected it we can take that information and act upon it in the future.”

With meaningful analytics that enable you to monitor, measure and improve all aspects of cardiovascular information services, LUMEDX's data intelligence tools and packages help drive performance while reducing costs.

Email info@lumedx.com to learn more about LUMEDX HealthView workflow solutions.

3 ways to get buy-in for predictive analytics tools

Getting service line leaders and physicians to use predictive analytics is sometimes more difficult than you’d think, even though the National Academy of Medicine says one-third of the U.S. healthcare system’s resources—$750 billion each year—is spent on unnecessary services and inefficient care. So what’s standing in the way of getting buy-in when it comes to the kind of tools specifically designed to reduce wasteful spending?

Meetali Kakad, Ronen Rozenblum and David Westfall Bates, writing for the Harvard Business Review, interviewed 34 key figures from leading U.S. health systems, policy makers and predictive analytics vendors to find out how to get more buy-in. Here are some of the lessons learned:

1.Engage everyone. “Success depends less on the tool itself than on getting buy-in at all levels from the start,” they wrote. This includes making sure frontline employees fully understand the value of these analytics, as well as ensuring your CEOs and top leadership are educated and fully grasp the value proposition to generate support.

2.Communicate the value. “Demonstrating the clinical impact of a predictive tool can go a long way toward engaging those who will use them,” the authors say. Giving real examples that are results-oriented is especially helpful for clinical staff who may be skeptical of “black box algorithms.”

3.Bring in the experts. The use of implementation experts to help everyone adjust gives you a marked advantage, according to the authors’ findings. These experts can work with clinicians to map workflows and spot potential challenges when introducing a new process or tool.

LUMEDX, the leader in cardiovascular data intelligence and a pioneer in cloud-powered healthcare solutions, offers a comprehensive suite of software and services that enable meaningful analytics, high-performance workflows, optimal integration of clinical and HIS data, and improved continuity of care.

Physician satisfaction is inextricably linked to patient satisfaction, so it stands to reason that helping doctors provide unparalleled care in an efficient, streamlined way is crucial to the success of any healthcare enterprise.

“Cardiologists are very focused. They like to get their work done efficiently, effectively,” says Laurel Shearer, executive vice president at LUMEDX. “They don’t want any impediments to doing the best job that they can possibly do. They like to see good patient outcomes and they like to have the information they need to get good patient outcomes.”

LUMEDX Executive Vice President Laurel Shearer talks about the importance of physician
satisfaction and how it relates to hospital revenue.

So how do you make sure your cardiologists have all the information they need at their fingertips? Shearer offers her perspective in the video above.

Doctors don’t just want information at their desk, she says. If they’re working at the clinic, they need access to the information gathered at the hospital site or elsewhere. Sometimes they need to maximize their time at the airport or at home by reading ECGs or by reviewing a complete patient record with echos, labs and more.

The HealthView cardiovascular information system (CVIS) puts the kind of information physicians need in front of them, “When they need it, how they need it, and where they need it,” says Shearer. “Cardiologists don’t just practice in their office or don’t just practice at a hospital, they have multiple places where they impact the patient population. So, having that information accessible in all those different places is extremely important.”

And happy doctors are key to a successful cardiovascular service line, Shearer adds.

“One of the main drivers of hospital revenue is physician satisfaction,” she said. “If they don’t have a cadre of committed physicians then they don’t have referral patterns, they don’t have patients, they don’t have volume.”

Email info@lumedx.com to learn more about LUMEDX HealthView workflow solutions.

​Although much progress has been achieved in digitizing the healthcare system, today's health IT infrastructure still struggles to support a transition to "value-based care," according to a new report from the American Medical Informatics Association.

"Provider organizations pursuing new models of health care delivery and payment are finding that their electronic systems lack the capabilities needed to succeed," the study asserted. "The result is a chasm between the current health IT ecosystem and the health IT ecosystem that is desperately needed."

The report, titled, "Crossing the health IT chasm: considerations and policy recommendations to overcome current challenges and enable value-based care," outlines policy recommendations for patients, providers and researchers to improve access to healthcare data for all the groups and proposes new standards for IT systems and applications.

LUMEDX, the leader in cardiovascular data intelligence and a pioneer in cloud-powered healthcare solutions, offers a comprehensive suite of software and services enables meaningful analytics, high-performance workflows, optimal integration of clinical and HIS data, and improved continuity of care.

For more information on LUMEDX HealthView solutions, please visit www.lumedx.com or email info@lumedx.com.​

Hospital leaders can gain many advantages from aggregating financial, clinical and operational data to create dashboards that help them run their CV service line more effectively.

The LUMEDX webinar, "Improving Performance with Clinical Data Integration: How Orlando Health Used Dashboards to Better Manage its CV Service Line," will outline how to achieve these outcomes.

The complimentary webinar will take place Thursday, May 4, at 10 a.m. PT, 12 p.m. CT and 1 p.m. ET.

In this webinar, Rick Jones, RPH, Business Support Manager, Cardiovascular Service, Surgery and Pharmacy, Orlando Health, will outline how this comprehensive private, not-for-profit healthcare network in Florida is integrating data and making it available to decision-makers on a regular, refreshable basis to improve productivity, clinical and financial outcomes.

Registries continue to improve the effectiveness and safety of patient care of heart disease in hospitals throughout the U.S.

A recent report shows registry data is providing unique perspectives into the care and outcomes of heart disease and outlines the strength of national quality programs, like NCDR, in advancing the effectiveness of patient treatments.

The authors examined patient populations, participating centers and patterns of care based on 2014 data from four of the 10 NCDR programs -- CathPCI Registry, ICD Registry, ACTION Registry-GWTG and IMPACT Registry.

"We were able to report on the care and outcomes of patients undergoing common cardiovascular procedures, including percutaneous coronary interventions, implantable defibrillators, and interventions for congenital heart disease as well as for patients with acute heart attacks," NCDR Management Board Chair and lead author of the study Frederick A. Masoudi, MD, MSPH, FACC , said. "In some cases, hospitals are consistently providing excellent care; the registries, however, allow us to identify those aspects of care where the cardiovascular clinical community can improve."

The proliferation of cyberattacks on healthcare providers is well known, with new reports continuing to highlight the problem.

More than 216 hospitals were included in 1,798 breaches between Oct. 21, 2009 and Dec. 31, 2016, according to a report last week in The Journal of the American Medical Association. Additionally, 33 hospitals, or 15 percent, reported more than one breach. Of the 141 affected acute care hospitals, 52 were major academic medical centers.

Also, about 20,000 patients were affected in 24 of the 216 breached hospitals, and six hospitals had over 60,000 breached patient records.

Another recent report found that ransomware attacks more than quadrupled in 2016, with nearly half happening in the healthcare sector. These types of attacks are projected to double again in 2017, Beazley Breach Insights reported.

Some efforts are underway to form a coordinated response to this problem.

At a hearing last week to address cyberattacks in the healthcare industry, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Terry Rice, VP of IT risk management and CISO at Merck, indicated cybersecurity has become a top concern for healthcare organizations.

While hundreds of millions of health records have been compromised in data breaches in recent years, the extent of the problem may be inadequately reported. “Unfortunately, I believe these incidents underrepresent the risks we are facing as an industry,” Rice said.

To fight cyberattacks, Congress should provide organizations tax breaks for Information Sharing and Analysis Centers, educate the industry on the importance of information sharing, protect data shared through ISACs and advocate for public-private partnerships, Denise Anderson, president of the National Health Information Sharing and Analysis Center told the lawmakers.

“It’s become increasingly apparent that the industry needs a government representative who understands cybersecurity issues, threats, vulnerabilities and impacts, as well as the blended threats between physical and cybersecurity,” said Anderson.

At LUMDEX, privacy, security and of course HIPAA-compliance are the essence of our software solutions. We invite you to read our Privacy and Security Policy, our Editorial and Advertising Policy, and our Terms and Conditions of Use. Feel free to browse throughout LUMEDX.com, and please read our Mission Statement in the "About Us" section of LUMEDX.com.

It's becoming increasingly clear that healthcare providers are reaping big dividends from hosting data and services in the cloud.

"Hosting applications in the cloud can help you scale as you grow, collaborate with partners and patients, store and manage huge amounts of patient data and get a bigger return on your IT investments in the long run," Molly True wrote last week in HealthCare Business & Technology

She cited the ability for hospitals to combine a public cloud offering with a private cloud offering where the systems are connected and interoperate with other existing systems. Providers can also keep some of their most sensitive data on their premises and some of their applications.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is following this trend. Last week, it announced plans to increase the adoption rate of cloud services this year from 18.5 percent to 30 percent of its systems.

"We have worked to embrace cloud," HHS Chief Information Officer Beth Killoran said. "If you do cloud properly, the implementation should be transparent to the workforce. When we did our financial systems upgrade last year, we had to provide training on the new capabilities -- not the platform. The effort has been a great success."

Moreover, in a recent survey, prominent healthcare executives predict a drastic shift from on-premise IT infrastructure into the cloud. That includes electronic health records, clinical decision support and analytics.

LUMEDX's HealthView delivers HIPAA-compliant data management and analytics solutions via the cloud, making important data available to your providers-anywhere, anytime-while reducing the time and money you spend on IT infrastructure. To learn more about our various cloud and on-premise options, contact us at info@lumedx.com.

The explosion of available health data is giving organizations the opportunity for the first time to leverage critical data analysis for key services such as financial and clinical decision support management.

The high demand of integrated clinical analytics solutions stems from their dynamic nature and ability for users to extract data from clinical documents synched with the system, such as (electronic health records) EHR, using the data to generate key insights, TMR said.

As a result, this spending makes sense when seen as the means to leverage programs offering actionable insight previously unavailable to healthcare leaders, Stefano Bertozzi, dean and professor of health policy and management at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, said recently in Healthcare IT News.

"But to the extent that we are increasingly able to correct for other factors that create differences, Big Data can reveal what the differences in performance really are," he said. "And, as a result, what are the interventions that are effective for improving the performance."